By listening.
Always.
The initial conversation provides a road map for me to begin working with. I take note of the reported phenomena and I take great care to be tentative while the client explains what they have been experiencing. Usually, I have to give a helping hand with this. To provide some clarifying vocabulary so we can put the series of events that have brought us to this exact moment together.
‘Could you feel a presence?’
‘Did you think it was a visitation?’
‘Has there been a persistent yet unexplainable heaviness in the house?’
‘Do you feel like memories from the past are still impacting you there now?’
Patience and understanding are key here because as you can imagine, it can be an uncomfortable thing for people to put in to words and admit..
‘There is something going on.’
However unique the circumstances or the location, every single case has this same thing in common.
It can be as simple as an unshakeable feeling or a consistent run of bad luck. Encountering an unexplainable resistance to progress and positive momentum in daily life or outright apparitions and voices coming from the dark.
As someone who has experienced my own set of…unique circumstances…I try to be as emphatic and considerate as possible at all times. It is a privilege to be able to hold a person in that non-judgmental space – where at the very least they can feel re-assured that they are speaking to someone who does indeed not think that they are crazy.
However I also have to strike the balance of being as moderate, realistic and concise as possible.
You see, for me as the person who is expected to provide clarity in a somewhat atypical, ambiguous, or unusual situation I also need to be able to exercise objectivity. For this I utilize my lived-experience and my psychic abilities of discernment to get my own ‘sense‘ of the situation at hand.
This includes reading between the lines of what I hear. To filter out the panic, the fear and to discern any personal influence the client may be directly having on the situation. It is in this middle ground, the ‘liminal psychic space’ where I can hear my inner voice, my own intuition and my own guidance. This is my first port of call always.
When I want to assess or confirm my client’s reports I rely on this sense. I will ‘tune in’ and see if I am able to connect with the energy of the property and see if anything comes to me naturally.
This may be a ‘vision‘ or a ‘feeling’ that I can describe to the client to help get a read on the case. It could be anything such as the location of a particular room, works that have gone on recently, a description of the road side or maybe even the color or shape of the house itself.
This is my clairvoyant ability. My ability to see things remotely.
I do this through psychically tapping into the perception the client has of their property or indeed mediumistic-ally, seeing it through the eyes of the spirits that also live there.
With this ability I may actually be able to validate the presence of the spirits that the client reports to be in contact with there.
I can be sometimes shown how the spirits are behaving; standing close to a bedside, appearing in someone’s dreams, making strange noises or manifesting as breezes.
I also have a few key tools to help me with assessments.
Chief amongst them are my copper dowsing-rods (as pictured above) and pendulums.
Dowsing..
Can be practiced by anyone, not just diviners locating wells (that is only one of the many functions of dowsing-rods.) It does not have to be gift that is passed down from generation to generation (yes, a proclivity or talent for it can absolutely inherited) as we all have the ability to connect with energy.
The rods and indeed pendulums also are a fantastic way of validating or confirming your intuition as they can provide a neutral or outside source of confirmation through simple ‘yes/no’ style answers.
These tools can reflect the vibrations or energies present in a situation and help the user to precisely discern the influences of a situation.
This includes and is not limited to the location of objects, spirits, people and waterways (locating is one of the key functions of dowsing), spirit communication (the ability to directly engage in communication with spirits, providing them with an opportunity to speak in the same ‘yes or no’ style answers) and communicating with the user or client’s psyche ‘higher-self’ (asking personal questions of the subconscious or person’s own spirit guides to help gain clarity with decision-making, relationships or spiritual gifts etc.)
My dowsing rods were custom made and very kindly gifted to me after the successful removal of a harmful druidic influence on a land where sacrificial work, hundreds of years earlier, had left a serious residue that was very clearly affecting the property in today’s times. I was able to see the druids as cloaked figures standing ritualistically in a circle, surrounding me and the property owner as we conducted our clearing.
I believe my rods came to me at a very important part of the journey after this ‘initiatory experience’ and have been instrumental in my work ever since.
A few years now of using these tools has helped me also to hone my own sensitivity, becoming almost a human pendulum. I have a very good baseline for the truth and various energetic influences as a result.
I now react almost as a pendulum or set of dowsing rods would when I sense a change in my circumstances or the environment around me.
This ability lends itself to brilliantly to my rather hands-on-approach when I eventually have determined that ‘yes, this is a case in which I feel there is a paranormal influence present’.
Once we have reached a mutual understanding of the situation, I am then invited by the client to the location to attempt to resolve it.
The Walk
This part can be daunting. Stepping into a space for the first time. No matter what size of a building; house, apartment, office-space or even a field.
Where do you start?
There are so many rooms and possibilities.
How do I start to even make sense of the dynamics present in a space?
Once again, by listening.
And taking things quite literally one step at a time.
Usually I will call in the spirit of the land and make an invitation to all the energies present in a place. I set my intention with clarity and respect, expressing my desire to resolve any disturbances and release anything stuck, stagnant or heavy to the light.
I am initiating a conversation with energies that have been present for quite some time and may have a dominant influence on the space. As you can imagine, I have to be very careful.
As I begin my walk, I notice how I feel as I move through the area. I might sometimes have my dowsing rods with me to help guide me and understand my surroundings.
After that it’s all about being present in the moment.
I observe my internal experience very carefully. I watch for any strong emotional reactions. I also watch for visceral phenomena, physical sensations from the energies around me. A sinking stomach, a dizzying feeling, a racing heartbeat, or any unexplained pains or aches.
‘Clairsentience’ or ‘clear feeling’ is an ability that lets me sense information through emotions, energy, or physical feelings. It guides me through the building. Helping me lean into and understand areas that feel quite ‘clear’ and also warns me of areas that feel stagnant or ‘heavy‘.
When I feel a room or area with trapped or negative energy, I start to examine why I feel the area is blocked for some reason. Has someone living left a residue of very strong emotional experience? Is there an unresolved memory or traumatic event from the past present here?
Then of course.. is there anyone non-living who may be having an effect here on the space.
Thanks to my clairsentient abilities as far back as I can remember I have always had a very keen spatial awareness with spirit. I can tell where in a room a presence may be standing – having been visited many times, sensing spirits at the end of my bed as a child growing up.
I can also feel their movements with me or the other people in the space as they move around us. This also gives me an idea as to how they interact with the space, whether they like to stand in a particular corner, sit in a particular chair or prefer to hide out in a particular nook.
On a most recent clearing I came across the spirit of a young maid who was particularly fond of the house’s hotpress. She quite literally jumped out at me when I opened the press door.
I was very clearly able to see her old-style maid’s uniform and her vengeful presence as her body was draped in a black shawl – like Susan Hill’s foreboding Woman in Black.
She had worked in an estate or manor house close to the ground where the current day property stood and had taken a spite against the family she had then worked for. A secret love affair with the man of the house came to a tragic end – resulting in unrequited love and the sad loss of a secret pregnancy.
The trauma this lady experienced created such a thirst for revenge that her presence ended up taking a serious hold on the house I was investigating. Influencing the people there with her crusade for vengeance by encouraging all sorts of negative behaviors.
My estimated time frame of these events is some where from 1890-1920.
A seance-style communication session was required to communicate with her spirit, send her onward, release her hold on the house and her hold on all the spirits there. We did this successfully and restored rightful ownership of the home to the living Bean an Tí (woman of the house).
On my walk I engage with spirit where I am intuitively guided. I sit in particular rooms and I patiently observe my surroundings. It’s like tuning into whatever I sense in the air. Spirit knows my intention and my own guides help me to see what I need to see. Whether it’s the nature of the spirits present or the effect that the living have had on the space.
When it comes to the latter; substance abuse, renovation, serious disagreements, land disputes, inexperienced occult dabbling, ill-health, fire and death are the most common residues I might experience that the living have left.
As I have explained the spirits of a place might leave behind memories of severe trauma and pain that they experienced in their life or during their passing. Suicide, miscarriage, severe sickness, murder, drownings, burnings, accidental deaths and land disputes can be some of the experiences that the spirits of place may still be re-living.
These are referred to in Shamanic tradition as earthbound spirits; souls who through their pain and suffering in life or in their passing have simply left a fragment of themselves here. This has kept them from crossing over to a higher spiritual plane of existence and being at peace.
It is simply a job of finding the middle ground or playing a mediating role. As the Medium and Shamanic Practitioner in this process, I only seek to initiate healing conversations with these souls and ultimately assist with their crossing.
Step by step, room by room, spirit by spirit.
Taking each experience and moment as it comes, all in my stride.
Knowing that I am protected and guided by the strength of my own spirit.
Having the confidence and belief in my own lived experience, my personal knowledge and my abilities to confidently work through and untangle all the angles of a case as it presents itself.
If I ever doubt myself I remember all of the moments that have lead me to this place in my journey.
I listen, take a breath, remember and then say..
‘here’s how I can help you’.
I say this to the living.
And I say this to the dead.
When it comes to each and every Land and House Clearing – this is where I start.
Conor Smith is a dedicated house and land healer with a lifelong connection to the unseen energies that shape our spaces and lives. As a psychic-medium he works intuitively with spirit, energy, and the natural environment to sense imbalances, clear stagnant or heavy energies, and restore harmony to homes and land. By bridging the spiritual and physical worlds Conor helps people feel safer, lighter, and more at peace in their surroundings.
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